My normal workout routine is weight training, Yoga and bicycling. But when on the road I have to improvise. At the moment I have no gym available, and possibility of cycling, so I've taken to swimming. So, what is the best stroke? I'm trying to grab a handful of water and pull it in, avoiding the windmill effect. But it still does not feel natural. Any tips?Also, breath on the left or right?Thanks, Alan

Hi Alan. That's a pretty big question, I coached swimming for a lot of years so I'll try to answer you. The "best" stroke is the one that propels you through the water most efficiently, and provides the best workout...for many people that would be Freestyle. As to what side to breathe on, that's very individual, competitive swimmers breathe on both sides, the rest of us tend to breathe on our dominant side (right handed = breathing to the right).

I do lap swimming upwards of 3 times per week.My stroke of choice is freestyle.kind regards

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Annapurna wrote:I do breaststroke and backstroke, is about all i can do.

I can't swim freestyle, I get confused about arms and legs

I am even more embarrassed Anna ... I dont know what freestyle means? I thought there were just standard strokes?

Thinking about it made me remember a scene in 'Friends' where Phoebe runs 'freestyle' in Central park. She rushes around with mad abandonment , flaying her arms around to the embrassment of her friends.But she insists she is running how she did when she was a child and running was fun.

I am the same on the dance floor...unfortunately

Msmedusa

'You cannot stop the birds of unhappiness flying around your head, but you dont have to allow them to make nests in your hair ' Chinese Proverb.

Swimming is a big thing for me matey, t'is one of only a handfull of things I can do well ..

Anyways just picking up on summat Pax said ...

Free Style (front crawl) with alternative breathing is best if you want to keep your strength balanced. That is breathe left, miss one, breathe right, btw.

Reason for alternative breathing being important is that whichever side you breathe on the opposite arm will naturaly do the most powerfull stroke so as you can get a longer breathing space.

Like if you breathe on the right all the time the left arm will work far harder than the right arm and verse-vica?

Sacrificing every third breath also means that on every third stroke you have the best aquadynamics (always faster head down?) and neither arm needs to provide the extra pull to rise you up to breathe. You get more speed, and thus distance, for less energy using that technique.

M'final tip (with apologies if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs) is to learn to time the outbreath so its all gone, but only just all gone, by the time your head comes up to breathe. That way none of the time your head is spent out of the water will be wasted blowing out and you get a far longer chance to suck air in.

Best work out of all tho' is simply to jump in and thrash about 'doggy paddle' style with your head up all the time. You'll be completely cream-crackered after just a few lengths that way!

Annapurna wrote:Odd, all I ever heard is that swimming is ideal for the joints, because we are not as heavy in the water, and so forth and all movements are slowed down by the water.

A lot of people with orthopedic surgery get water gymnastics here for rehab.

That's correct Anna. It is 'no impact' exercise.kind regards

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Annapurna wrote:Odd, all I ever heard is that swimming is ideal for the joints, because we are not as heavy in the water, and so forth and all movements are slowed down by the water.

A lot of people with orthopedic surgery get water gymnastics here for rehab.

It's true for many types of rehab, however there are several "repetitive motion" injuries attributable to swimming. I have impingement tendonitis in my shoulders from years of competing in freestyle and butterfly. The injury I mention above is referred to as "swimmers knee" or sometimes "Breaststroke knee"